P i s t a c h i o

The spellbinding work of photographer Fulvio Bonavia.

via 2ndStudio and ShareSomeCandy, which I’ve gladly done.

Flavour’em, stack’em ‘n’ pack’em.

With a nod to the periodic table of elements, the work of designer Eduardo del Fraile of Spain, an offshoot of his SoSo salt campaign. via LovelyPackage

Legend

Na Natural

Tr Truffled

Pi Five peppers

Ba Barbecue

As Asian

Pm Smoked paprika

Me Mediterranean

Ar Arabian

In Indian

Says Fast Company, who found it: The Xylem Brooch by Nervous System, which was based on a cross section of the circulatory systems of plants. The brooch’s minute details would have been impossible without rapid prototyping.

Says Nervous System, who made it: Veins radiate from three stem points in the center of the brooch, creating fan-shaped zones of growth that ultimately join into one network. The pattern was grown in our computer simulation of leaf venation and etched from a sheet of stainless steel.

$75

Buy it for me for Christmas.

Metal work by David Clarke via Share Some Candy

via CeeeMarie

Luckily, our tap water doesn’t need filtering.

Launched in the UK by HarveyNichols.

Design: Karim Rashid.

How artists rock paper. More here, via FastCompany.

“The only important thing in a book is the meaning it has for you.”

– Somerset Maugham

Edith’s War is Andrew Smith’s new novel, and layers of meaning are rife in this tale of two Liverpool families during World War II. The book opens a window onto the impact of living through war as a civilian, on living a daily life that includes the aerial bombardments of the Blitz, and on being left behind.

For me, the book’s deepest meaning is dished up in its confluence of Italian and English culture, which — whatever the time or place — is never better focused than when people are gathered around food. For the Maguires and the Baccanellos, the two neighbouring and emotionally enmeshed families at the centre of Edith’s War, food rationing was the order of the day. At the beginning of the war, the UK imported over 70 per cent of its food and 50 per cent of its meat. Rationing began in early January, 1940, initially with bacon, eggs, butter and sugar, and not long afterward, meat.

Although both families have kitchen gardens, which help them become self-reliant and creative in putting food on the table, it’s the scramble for meat that puts both rabbit [coniglio] and horse [cavallo] on their plates, and not always happily.

These characters hunted their rabbit, but when I was growing up, we never went any further than our backyard for fresh, live rabbit. It was a family staple, and from it I learned the relationship of eating to killing.

From about six or seven, I was my father’s accomplice at slaughter. Thinking back, I’m not sure how I felt about my dad asking me to hold the hind legs while he held the rabbit’s neck and sunk a knife into it. Together, we’d hold the animal until it stopped moving. After letting the blood drain, he would start the ceremonial skinning, cutting a seam around the neck and paws, tipping his knife under the membrane separating the pelt from the body. Then, surreally, he would pull the pelt clean off, like a sweater. Then came the belly incision, revealing a collection of perfect, moist organs joined together in their purpose, and now sorted out for ours.

This crazy childhood experience could explain why I became a chef. Looking back, I can see that I was able to manage my task because of the natural and ironically safe atmosphere my father created. He acted like he was doing the most natural thing in the world. Of course, he was.

It turns out I would never be queasy about meat, but horse is something else.

Horse makes an appearance in Edith’s War when the Baccanello matriarch, Anna, tells the two families gathered for an Italian-style Christmas Eve feast, “I tell that butcher over and over to find some horse. It’s not rationed and there must be many people round here only too glad to sell their animals. Finally he took my advice. It’s good, yes?”  Hmmm. Her son gobbles up some remaining scraps with gusto, but Liam Maguire, who’d been eating his fill blithely unaware, is horrified.

The year I cooked classical French food in a posh restaurant in Quebec, I cooked horse for the first and last time. Although I didn’t want to, I ate some. It was beautiful, moist, purple-red flesh that tasted delicate and sweet. I ate it like I ate sweetbreads, brains and sea urchin. I needed to know how they tasted, and I can be happy going to my grave never eating them again.

When I looked closely at my problem with eating horse, all I could come up with was the archetype. Horses are dealt a genetically gifted hand. In my eyes, they’re grand and noble, suited only for riding or work or some combination of both, but never as part of the food chain.

Here’s the thing: it’s no different from my young childhood friends who cooed while petting our lovely, soft bunnies and then violently popped their eyes and dropped their jaws when they found out the rabbits would eventually be supper. As adults, we can indefinitely cling to our emotional sentiments concerning food, but like the Maguires and the Baccanellos in Edith’s War, we’ll continue to take culinary cues from other cultures, whether contending with our survival or not.

You can get a great deal on Edith’s War here and the eBook here.

Follow Andrew’s blog, tweet him @andrewaxiom and fan him on FB.

“You should make homemade cheese straws,” says Amy Palajian, via ReadyMade.

This must be why.

Inspired.

The work of Luxirare [the complete breakdown of these "health bars" here] via TheCoolist.

A bit too fussy and delux for me, but unmistakably beautiful, so props for that.